8 FISHES OF FANCY. 



(so spake the Buddha when reproving the luxurious Monk 

 of Jetavana) that the fishes chose Leviathan for their king. 

 Aqueous society, therefore, was an established monarchy 

 at the earliest possible date. What manner of thing 

 " Leviathan " was in those unevoluted days the period 

 called (until the days of Lyell) the Epoch of Diluvium and 

 Catastrophe, the age of unlimited mud it would be almost 

 profane for us, in these puny days of whales, without spirit 

 enough in us to firk up even a sea-serpent, to attempt to 

 imagine ; and for myself I am content to believe with the 

 Talmudists that it was an indefinable sea-monster, of which 

 the female lay coiled round the earth, till God, fearing her 

 progeny might destroy the new globe, killed it, and that 

 then He salted her flesh and put it away for the banquet 

 which the pious shall enjoy at the Great End. In that 

 day the angel Gabriel will kill the male also, and will make 

 a tent out of his skin for the elect that are bidden to the 

 banquet. It* is a hazy old tradition, I confess, but it is the 

 oldest we have, and, as regards Leviathan, quite as satis- 

 factory as any other on the subject. 



But the monarchy must have collapsed, for fishes are 

 nowadays distinctly republican, and each arrives at its 

 own particular measure of dignity upon grounds apart 

 from any relation to a central authority. An Arabic 

 legend * tells us of the Lake Biserta, which received twelve - 

 different kinds of fish, one for each month of the year, 

 without any intermixture, for when their month elapsed all 

 the fish of the species then in possession used to vacate the 

 lake, and were replaced by another. But this admirable 

 system of methodical tenancy reminding one of the 

 system in vogue in rest-houses in the East, where a party 



* Now for the first time in print, as are most of the others in this 

 Handbook from Arabic sources. 



